by Jada Fisher
“Bronn!”
This time, it was the prince who Krisjian was shoving aside, just in time for a refrigerator to crash into the ground where he’d been, sparking and exploding outwards. I blinked at it, almost forgetting about the rotted dragon entirely, until a rumble sounded below my feet and something was pushing me upward.
I swore something fierce and rolled, getting out of the way just as what looked like the front end of a subway cart burst out of the ground, steaming and smelling like burning chemicals. I could faintly hear the rotted dragon snarling and his claws scraping against something with a horrible shriek, but somehow, he was the least of my worries.
“We need to find cover,” Bronn said, pulling me to my feet. My bleeding hand had stopped most of its leaking, only if because it was caked with dirt and what looked like oil. I wondered if I was going to live long enough to get an infection. So far, we were maybe ten minutes into the convergence, and it was definitely a wild ride.
“No kidding,” I said as he pulled me along, back toward the castle and away from Faeldrus.
It was like something out of some film student’s apocalyptic film, with things raining from the sky that weren’t even remotely acquainted with rain and other things bursting from the ground that weren’t ever supposed to be underground. Occasionally, things were still moving at full momentum, while others just popped into existence like they were always meant to be there.
There were so many cars and appliances, chunks of houses, things I couldn’t recognize. I swore I even saw a cat at some point.
Poor cat.
We made it inside, but the castle wasn’t exactly safe either. It was billowing dark smoke inside with the groaning of injured people bouncing off the cracking walls. Things were just randomly appearing into existence there too, then winking out, sometimes taking chunks of stone and debris with them.
“I don’t know if this is the best plan!” Krisjian cried, diving forward as the floor literally rolled in a wave under him. I jumped over the strange movement, my eyes tracking it as it continued its journey down the hall like it was the world’s longest waterbed.
“This is insane,” I breathed. I had a long history with drugs considering my extensive injuries and ensuing visions, but nothing made me feel more delirious than what was going on around me. Part nightmare, part circus, one hundred percent disaster—it was a real cacophony of noise and sensation.
But still we ran, trying to duck out of the way of anything that would hurt us. We didn’t get very far, however, before a hand reached out of the wall in front of me, grabbing the stump of my arm and yanking harshly.
“Bronn—” was just about all I managed to get out before I was yanked right through the solid partition.
Fifteen minutes since convergence and it just kept getting weirder.
3
What Makes a Dues Ex Machina?
I tumbled out into a bedroom, Bronn and Krisjian right behind me. Their considerable bulk nearly crushed me into the soft rug. Ew. I hated rugs.
Blinking, I let out a groan and they scrambled to get off me, each urgently apologizing, and I was pretty sure Krisjian slipped back into his native language for a moment. There was a time, not too far back, where I would have had plenty of cushion for all of us to take a hard landing and then laugh it off. But as it was, I had considerably less bulk than before. Did that boy have extra-hard elbows or did it just feel that way?
That question remained unanswered, as I finally noticed the human attached to the hand that had grabbed me.
She was petite, stylishly dressed, and looking down at us through practical glasses. I stared up at her, my brain slowly churning like it was trying to catch up with all the madness that had beset us in the past fifteen minutes.
And then it clicked.
Sokhanya?
I signed, recognizing certain parts of her face. Sure, her features were less gaunt, and she was bigger in general, looking like a small framed but fully-grown woman instead of an extremely small framed preteen. Her hair was full and healthy, and she didn’t have a single discoloration patch or scar visible.
Huh, it was like the opposite of meeting Mal.
The woman tilted her head then shook it, her expression confused. I almost wondered if she wasn’t deaf at all when she began to speak, her words layered thickly with a hard of hearing accent.
“I think I’ve been dreaming of you.”
“Um, flattering, but—”
“You’re going to stop the monster that swallows all worlds.”
Oh man, that twisted like a dagger in my gut and I stuttered out a few nonsense syllables before my brain caught up.
“Uh, about that. I, um, that’s already out of the bag. We failed. He got the spell off and the convergence is happening.” Strange to think how the deaths of hundreds of anti-humanists would have once been a boon to my entire group, but it didn’t even matter anymore. There was something so much worse after us.
The woman shook her head, movements strong and sure. It was strange to see Sokhanya-not-actually-named-Sokhanya be so confident and able-bodied. It made me wonder if every version of us had oracle gifts and if we were the same people just copied across different dimensions with different circumstances of birth, or if there was only just so much genetic variance with oracles and fey that left the same combinations to happen over and over again across the different dimensions.
Dimensions, genetics, apocalypses. I remembered, almost too long ago, when my biggest concern was if I’d accidentally put regular milk into a drink order that had requested soy product and how I was going to pay my rent. I didn’t even have a rent anymore. I just had world-ending crises.
“No. There’s a way to stop it.”
“What?” That had me scrambling to my feet. “What is it? What do we have to do?”
“I… I don’t know. All I know is that it has to be you. You were there when this convergence began, the enemy has chosen you as his nemesis, so it must be you who stops it.”
“Gr—”
There was a deafening cracking sound and then the house split into two, debris and particles falling everywhere. I tried to stay upright, but a moment later, I was slamming onto my back and sliding down the tilted floor into the abyss. Bronn tried to burst into his dragon form, I could see steam coming from his skin and his body rippling, but he couldn’t even get a wing out before we were falling down, down, down.
This time, our trip through the strange between place was like the blink of an eye, and then we were crashing into concrete hard enough that I knew I was going to have a nasty bruise. I groaned but managed to roll away when I heard Krisjian retching next to me.
“Whoa,” I said, rushing to him somewhat wobblily, pushing his messy bangs out of his face and gently rubbing his back in big circles. “You okay?”
“Nauseous,” was all the young man managed to gasp before he was sick again.
The noises of it, the way the muscles of his back bunched and jumped, all made me think of Mallory and my heart squeezed so hard that I was surprised I didn’t lose my lunch too. Suddenly, I was back in that moment, surrounded by the green gas and full of fear, delirious from all the head trauma and from causing Baelfyre’s death.
But then, like a sharp pinprick of reality, something bit my ear.
“Ow!” I cried, swatting at the errant bug only for my hand to be caught by what felt like tiny paws tipped in tinier daggers. Nearly jumping out of my skin, I looked on my shoulder to see a shining, pure silver little dragon.
“Bronn?!” I asked, hardly believing what I was seeing. He wasn’t just a shrunken down version of his bigger self, he was elongated, his features turned soft and almost cartoonish. It was almost as if someone had fused those long, eastern dragons with the western version to make the cutest little mascot. “That can’t be you.”
He stood up on his hind legs, grabbing my hair and chittering away. Oh, it was Bronn alright. I could tell.
“I know I am relatively new to this magi
c thing, but that seems particularly strange.”
“We just watched a bus come out of nowhere and slam into the rotted dragon.”
“Point taken, but still… Why is this? And what are with the copies we are seeing? That woman, she was Sokhanya, but also not Sokhanya.”
“Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. So, you know how Mal is from a different world, right? And how she looked a lot like…” I tried not to, I really did, but the word still skipped in my mouth, like it didn’t want to come out. “Like Mallory?”
“…yes.” Krisjian was just as cautious about the name, no doubt holding onto that fear that I would reject him for using his influence on me to drag me away. I wouldn’t, of course. I understood why he had done what he had done. But I also understood why he was worried. Mallory was my lifetime friend—even if we’d had that awful falling out for a short while—and Krisjian was just some kid I’d roped into my plans in order to bring myself back to life.
“Okay, well, it’s not just that one world that’s like ours. There are dozens and dozens and maybe even thousands of worlds out there, all stacked on top of, around, and in each other. Some of them have tiny differences, some of them have huge differences, and we wouldn’t know until we see them.”
“And those differences make some worlds incompatible with each other?”
Bronn let out a chuffing sound, no doubt wanting them to pay more attention to why he was tiny, but honestly, I could only handle so much at one time and Krisjian’s questions were way easier.
“Correct. That’s why combining all of them, in the end, means death for all eventually.”
“I don’t understand why the rotted dragon would want that.”
“Eh, it’s about power. He just wants to be able to rule over everything and feed off of all the magical energy that the convergence is causing. You already saw how restored he was.” Yeah, restored was a good word, because calling him beautiful made me feel like I’d eaten the contents of an ashtray. “Maybe he doesn’t believe that everything will end. Maybe he thinks he can build a new existence with only loyal subjects. Despite all the talking and insulting he does, he hasn’t exactly monologued about the inner workings of his plans.”
Krisjian nodded, holding his hand out. Bronn jumped to it, smaller but longer than a cat, but scurried to the top of his head so that he could look me in the eye.
“I know, I know,” I murmured in what I hoped was a soothing manner. “But given how fast we’ve been sliding through worlds, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
While I didn’t know he was asking about what we were going to do about his sudden shrinkage, I had a pretty good idea that was what he was concerned about.
“Do you think…” Krisjian started slowly, as if he was carefully picking out his words, “…that there’s a world out there where we’ve defeated the rotted dragon?”
Wouldn’t that be something?
“No, I don’t think so, if only because he was trapped there for so long. For whatever reason, I was the oh-so-lucky version of Davie Masters who got to be his pet project. I don’t know if it’s something about me or just luck of the draw.”
“More like unluck of the draw.”
I was tempted to finger guns and ‘ayy’ that, but I was just too exhausted. Less than fifteen minutes earlier, I’d been signing myself over to an anti-humanist elder, and that was probably the least-insane thing I’d done or witnessed.
Apocalypses were wild.
“If that’s the case,” Krisjian continued, “then why did that not-Sok know about it? Can our powers see into other dimensions? Like, I know all oracles have the ability for visions, but none of us have seen into the other places on our own, right? You only did when Mickey accidentally sent herself there after they were attacked and her powers snapped to protect them, and after the rotted dragon connected with you.”
“I… I realize you’re probably getting at something important there, but I’ve only recently been magically healed from some serious brain damage and only kinda healed.”
“I don’t know if I have an important point. Just that… Just that it would be weird if that version of Sok is the only oracle in all existence to see to other dimensions without the help of something from that dimension reaching out to her. So that means either the rotted dragon reached out to her, you, and other oracles but for some reason chose our world and our dimension. Or…”
“She’s connected to our realm in some other way.”
“Exactly.”
“I wish we had some way to ask her.” I hmphed, sitting down while Bronn ran all over me. He had sharp little claws. Next time he kissed me, maybe I would bite him.
That made me flush brightly, but also realize that we might never kiss again. The world was ending, all of our dimensions smooshing together into a mishmash, and soon we would all be dead.
Cheery.
“If we could find a way to feel where she was, maybe you could slingshot us there, but you can’t travel dimensions on your own, right?”
“Nope,” I said, popping the ‘p.’ “Like you said, even when I accidentally sent us all to another dimension, it was only because Mickey was there. Getting back here from the dead still took finding you to help yank me out. I wonder if that’s a part of your…influencing reality thing.”
“Hmm, it seems a bit late in the game for that, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe, but you’re in the midst of puberty. I have a feeling you’re gonna find out all sorts of interesting things about your magic.”
“…Davie, the worlds are ending. I’m not gonna find out anything about anything.”
…oh.
“Right. I forgot.”
He sat down next to me and even Bronn’s chittering died down, the three of us lost in thought for a long moment.
“Do you think you were around her long enough to call to her?”
“I… I don’t know. But I can try.” Closing my eyes, I reached out with the slight bit of fizzing magic I had before. It kind of felt like I was clearing the cobwebs out of my brain, reaching into a part of myself that had been cut off for months.
Man, strange to think of how powerful I had once been, able to cloak an entire city and only passing out from it. At the moment, I wasn’t even sure that I could cloak my body.
I conjured her up in my head, her stylish haircut, the way her cheeks weren’t shallow even after months of recovery, the way her skin didn’t hold discoloration and there were no fine scars around her mouth from biting at her own lips. I called her up as best I could, but when I tried to reach out to find her, I just got static.
I tried. I really did. Furrowing my brow and concentrating so hard that I felt sweat start to bead on my forehead, but nothing. I was useless.
“No. Nothing. Every time I feel I might know a direction, I run into a wall. I’m guessing that’s some sort of barrier between the current realities or something?”
“Maybe that’s what’s containing our visions and stops us all from communicating with every version of us. The barriers.”
“Yeah. Maybe. If we could just move or see through all of these, we could—” I stopped short, something that had been said to me a long time ago pinging at the back of my head.
“What? What is it?” Krisjian asked, head perking up.
“I think I have an idea,” I said, rushing forward on my hand and knees toward a creek that was babbling nearby. I didn’t want to verbalize it out loud, afraid I would jinx it, so I just dipped my finger into the mud along the creek and began to draw out some now-familiar runes against a jagged patch of stone.
It wasn’t pretty, and it didn’t necessarily go quickly, but that didn’t matter. The marks were all there, in janky and hastily-drawn runes of mud. If Bronn or Krisjian had doubts, they didn’t air them.
“Give me your hand,” I said to Krisjian, holding my palm out. He took it, lowering himself next to me. “I want you to use your influence to make me believe I’ve got all my magic back.” He was always so trust
ing, the youngest of our little family. He trusted me, and I’d let the world end around him.
Shame.
“Um, I don’t know—”
“I don’t either,” I said gently. “But the worse that happens is it does nothing and I just draw from your strength where we’re touching.”
“Oh…okay.” He took a deep breath and I saw his posture straighten, his shoulders broadening. Kid just kept on growing, didn’t he? If he’d had the time, he’d probably be taller than me.
If he had the time.
Anger and guilt rolled through me, hot and all tangled together like a mass of lava. Sure, I’d been plenty upset for months now, ever since it was so apparent that we were losing, but suddenly it all swept through my body in a renewed spike. I was mad at how much was just lost. Stopped in its prime or even before it had a chance to bloom or blossom. Kids who would never get to grow up. Gardens never harvested. Ideas never to come to fruition.
All the beauty of life, the growth, the joy, everything, all coming to a crashing halt because some stupid, stupid, stupid oracle from millennia ago in an entirely different direction got all power hungry and nothing was ever enough.
“Davie?” Krisjian asked quietly.
I turned my head to peek at him and his expression was wide and open.
“Hmm?”
“Is it nice having your powers back?” he asked, voice smooth and more than a little comforting. I felt a strange sort of calmness settle over me. “I imagine it was pretty weird not having them for a while. Good thing they’ve returned, right?” He leaned in, looking up at me so earnestly. I found my eyelids getting a bit heavy, my brain turning pleasantly fuzzy as Krisjian continued. “I’m glad you’re back to normal. All that energy and magic in you. It’s really impressive.”
“Is it?” I asked, letting him guide my hand as he placed it against the runes of the circle I’d drawn. I thought I remembered that I was still having trouble with them, but Krisjian sounded so sure. He couldn’t be that sure and be wrong, right? That wasn’t how the world worked.
